Windrush: Sixty-three people may have been wrongly removed

SCORES of people are feared to have been wrongly removed or deported because of the Windrush scandal, home secretary Sajid Javid admitted yesterday.

Under questioning at the Home Affairs select committee Mr Javid said 32 of the 63 cases involved criminals and the other 31 were people who left voluntarily after being sent a letter by the Home Office asking them to leave.

"We have found 63 cases where individuals could have entered the United Kingdom before 1973 ... who have been removed or deported", he said.

The Home Office made the discoveries after analysing 8,000 deportation records of Caribbean-born immigrants aged 45 and over.

The wrongful removal of members of the Windrush generation applies to Caribbean nationals who were living in the United Kingdom legally and arrived in the country before 1973. Many came to the United Kingdom legally as children but have no formal documentation, which has also led to them being refused jobs or healthcare.

All but one left the United Kingdom "voluntarily" after being told to leave, he said.

Of these, five have since been found to have no legal status and nine cases are still under examination, while three have established their right to be in the UK.

"We have found 63 cases where individuals could have entered the United Kingdom before 1973 [and were eligible for protection from removal]", Mr Javid told MPs.

The admission comes after weeks of denials by the department that any member of the Windrush generation had been forced to leave Britain.

British authorities could have wrongly deported up to 63 immigrants from the Caribbean, the new interior minister said on Tuesday in the latest revelation on the Windrush scandal that cost his predecessor her job.

He said a Home Office helpline had received more than 11,500 calls, of which 4,482 were identified as possible Windrush cases and referred to a departmental taskforce.

The UK government said it had set up a scheme to compensate people who may have been wrongfully detained, sacked, had their bank accounts closed or lost their homes because of the scandal.